“Fred Sargent's Shanty Song”

Description

"In eighteen hundred and seventy-one, To swamp for a go-devil I begun, 'Twas on the banks of the Eau Claire, We landed there when the ground was bare. Tra-la-la-la...." The loggers get up, get dressed, go to work; the singer toasts the boss

Supplemental text

Fred Sargent's Shanty Song
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

From Franz Rickaby, Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy
(1926), #21, pp. 92-93. From Emmet Horen, Eau Claire,
Wisconsin.

In eighteen hundred and seventy-one
To swamp for a go-devil I begun.
'Twas on the banks of the Eau Claire.
We landed when the ground was bare.

    Chorus
  Tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la,
  Tra-la-la-la-la-la, lay-lie-lee.

(2 additional stanzas)

Notes

This is probably a particularization of some other shanty song. But with only three verses (the introductory formula, the verse about getting up in the morning, and the conclusion toasting Fred Sargent), what remains is almost all the particularized parts, and so cannot really be identified. - RBW

References

1. Rickaby 21, "Fred Sargent's Shanty Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. ST Rick092 (Partial)
3. BI, Rick092